The Wanderer

I created this control to create dropshadows on dynamic text.  I also considered using the Drawing namespace to generate an image and stream it.  I breifly even used Microsoft's IE-only filter:dropshadow css attribute.  The staw that broke the camels back on that was the fact that this filter looks terrible on XP machines with ClearType enabled.  I found an article about using a span within a div and repeating your contents twice (essentially creating a copy of your text, oversetting it, and changing its color).  I used this concept to create the server control described below.

The DropShadow control acts like a panel in the sense that it contains controls and renders them within a <div> tag.  In addition to that, however, this control captures the text "output" by all it's child controls and contents and repeats it (without any HTML tags) in such a way that it acts as a drop shadow.

Static Text Code:
<ctl:DropShadow runat="server">Search</ctl:DropShadow>

Static Text Rendering:


Static Text Rendering (Magnified):

Dynamic Control Code:
<ctl:DropShadow runat="server"><asp:LinkButton id="lbnDisposition" Text="Status" runat="server" /></ctl:DropShadow>

Dynamic Control Rendering:


Dynamic Control Rendering (Magnified):


Notice in the second (dynamic) example that the <a> tag created by the LinkButton control is not repeated in the shadow, but the text is.

Code:

Public Class DropShadow : Inherits WebControls.Panel
  Protected Overrides Sub Render(ByVal writer As System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter)
    writer.Write("<div style=""height:1px; display:inline; white-space:nowrap; " & _
      "font-weight:bold; position:relative; left:1px; top:1px; color:" & _
      GetHexCode(BackColor) & ";"">")

    'capture child control's output
    Dim result As New StringBuilder
    RenderChildren(New HtmlTextWriter(New IO.StringWriter(result)))
    Dim html As String = result.ToString()
    Dim rx As New Text.RegularExpressions.Regex( _
      "</?(\w+)(\s*\w*\s*=\s*(""[^""]*""|'[^']'|[^>]*))*|/?>", & _
      RegularExpressions.RegexOptions.Multiline)
    html = rx.Replace(html, "")
    writer.Write(html)

    writer.Write("<span style=""position:absolute; left:-1px; top:-1px; color:" & _ 
      GetHexCode(ForeColor) & "; width:100%;"">")
    RenderChildren(writer)
    writer.Write("</span>")

    writer.Write("</div>")
  End Sub

  Private Function GetHexCode(ByVal Color As System.Drawing.Color) As String
    Return "#" & Color.R.ToString("x2") & _
      Color.G.ToString("x2") & _
      Color.B.ToString("x2")
  End Function

  Public Sub New()
    'default colors
    Me.ForeColor = Drawing.Color.Black
    Me.BackColor = Drawing.Color.White
  End Sub
End Class